Butterfly wings is the latest inspiration among scientists in the hunt for better flat panels. You can namely find crystals on the wings of butterflies that contain repeated molecular structures that partly follow the wavelengths of visible light. This creates a certain interference with the light itself and then opens up the future possibility to contol what frequency and direction the light should travel by manipulating the organization of the cystals. They’ve discovered that by combining different orders of crystals you will be able to produce more colors than the one the butterfly actually shows, to attract partners; for example Red, Green and Blue (R-G-B) which are the three colors that makes up pixels.
“The red-green-blue palette could be used for flat-panel visual displays, says Biro, by making an array of crystals mounted on microelectromechanical arms that could change their orientation. In that way it would be possible for each “pixel” to produce red, green or blue.”
Exactly what the advantage would be over current technology is a bit hard to say since the displays would still be limited to variations of RGB even if the scientists are impressed by the range of colors they’ve been able to achieve. Alas it seems like cosmetics is a more likely use in the future.
